“Just a Thought”, the debut recording by jazz pianist/composer Dan La Maestra and his group, “One Step Up” on Tangent Records, features nine fantastic east-coast jazz musicians, including Marty Nau, Tom Palance, Glenn Wilson, Paul Pieper, Rob Holmes, Peter Revell, and Dominic Smith. The album features 5 original compositions by the leader, one original by guitarist Paul Pieper, and a variety of standards arranged by La Maestra for his group in a trio and a quartet format.

The concept from the start was to feature his piano in various different musical situations, from post-modern bop to good old-fashioned blues and ballads, all the while leaving plenty of space for the other musicians to play.The title track, “Just a Thought”, was arranged for septet by saxophonist and bandleader Rob Holmes, giving La Maestra a colorful cushion over which to expand on the main themes of the piece, and it features some amazing blowing by Rob, Marty, Glenn. “A Delicate Balance” and “A Colorful Tangent”, both by La Maestra, are quartet outings, and feature some beautiful dynamic interplay between the piano and the sax. The idea was not to “swing” in the traditional sense on these cuts, but to “ride the waves” of the music, to follow the “ebb and flow”, and to let that be the forward momentum of the group’s performances.“One Step Up” and “RUMI-nations” are the other originals on the date. The former (and the group’s name-sake), features the burning sax of Peter Fraize, from Washington DC. It was composed, in it’s completion, late one inspired night in 1997 after hearing fellow pianist George Colligan and his group perform at the DC jazz club, “One Step Down”.The rest of the program features several different arrangements of standards, the most notable being the trio’s reading of the Sinatra-vehicle “All the Way”, a sentimental yet touching song about commitment, and “Laverne Walk”, an Oscar Pettiford tune included here to feature the amazing and soulful young bassist, Peter Revell.